ST. LOUIS – A federal judge has sentenced an incarcerated man to ten additional year in prison after he admitted to blowing up the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in St. Louis.
The new ten-year-sentence Richard L. Russell, 58, also accounts for death threats he made to a judge and former probation officer, according to his plea.
Russell previously pleaded guilty to two counts of retaliating against a federal official, two counts of mailing threatening communications and one count of threatening to destroy a building by fire or explosion.
According to court documents, Russell was serving a nine-year sentence since January 2013 after for mailing threatening communications and threatening to murder a U.S. magistrate judge.
In June 2022, officials at the Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse received two similarly handwritten letters containing death threats addressed to a sitting federal judge and retired probation officer that were each signed by Russell.
Russell sent the letters to retaliate against the individuals who has previously worked on his court cases. He threatened the judge who sentenced him to nearly a decade in prison.
“Judges and probation officers serve the public by upholding the rule of law and supervising offenders in the court system. To threaten their lives for doing their jobs in abhorrent,” said U.S. Attorney Rachelle Aud Crowe via a news release. “This offender will spend another decade in prison for sending death threats and making threats of violence.”
The U.S. Marshals Service led the investigation into the threats.